POEMS of SEVEN POETS
(Spring/Summer 2018, Volume 6)
(Spring/Summer 2018, Volume 6)
James G. Piatt
His Last Rhyme Images headed inward, the incessant drone in his mind weighed down by shattered rhythms of an unfinished poem. His soul, Heavy… lead lined… trudged ahead to grasp his ego, collect scarlet words that fell to the floor and died, gaudy similes rotting under his shoeless iambs: His soul, perishable as newsprint, inky as smudges beneath his scarred unfaithful pen, warped around a sentence of which he was too tired to carry. His fear of nocturnal beings born of rusted iron and splintered ice, which grow in the night below his broken window, crushed his literary assurance. Too fearful to carry common metaphors alone across the heavy groans of the night, he finally escaped into his past and breathed his last rhyme. [Note: Poem has previously appeared in The Homestead Review.] Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
William Conelly
In the Ninth Month The unborn baby stirs beneath her heart, then thrusts out like a playful cat wrapped in a coverlet. It makes her start and pat her side. Please don’t do that, she chides; you’ll kick your mother’s ribs apart. She knows the life adventure they’ve begun leads soon enough through racking change to open air, to earth and autumn sun, where all save she must loom as strange and unimportant to this little one -- Yet propped with pillows on a worn divan, she has no thought of being brave. She feels instead her child, herself, her man, borne on love’s slow, momentous wave, accepting or exulting as they can. [Note: This poem is taken from Mr. Conelly's "Uncontested Grounds" (Able Muse Press).] Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Linda Hegland
Stars like Dandelion Seeds, Scatter and Fall I once saw a star tumble from the sky. It sighed and sizzled as it kissed The earth’s thin nimbus, Then consumed itself within its own passion. I once saw a small bird tumble from the sky. The breathy hand of a passing breeze caught it And perched it on a branch. I once saw a butterfly emerge from its cocoon – Over hours and hours – Its trembling body fragile and tender, Its wings shatter-able like stained glass. It dried and grew in substance and tenacity. Wings of glass, heart of oak. It flew away, now shivering with yearning, Fields of colour spread before it. I once saw, on a sheer rock face – Granite and scree – A crippled and warped tree. It grew from a thumb of soil, Drank from the rain in the wind, Adored the sun in its own broken way. It grew because it didn’t know how not to, Its seed an augury of purpose. I once saw a bee dance, and heard prairie grass sing. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
John Stocks
George He was elsewhere when the angels came, Lost in some long-forgotten garden, Where old fragrances of flowers teased, And she was somewhere-just out of reach. Thank God! They made him a cup of tea, Then shivered in his half-heated room, Three spoonfuls and his old heart fluttered. Deep in his crunched underbelly He felt somehow their beauty. And he was pleased they took the trouble To pause briefly in their flight. 'Three sugars George, you naughty boy!' He marvelled at their blessed ministry. Alone again, he would swallow his tears, His world shrunk to this solitary space Of diminished possibilities. The girls would know him only when he died, At his funeral they would hear of his service For king and country. Discover the journey of his life, Learn that he had been a teacher, a husband, a collector of antiques. Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
John Davis Jr.
These Pens can be Refilled states blue paper taped to the top of a thin wooden Cuesta Rey box loaded with push-button plastic ballpoints lifted from twentieth-century insurance companies, gas stations and banks my great uncle served on his sales route. He is dead, and has left me his office supplies laden with frugal, practical words scrawled under paperweights and in desk drawers. A Great Depression veteran, he knew true values of ink, work and memory. Click-clicking each pen, I find them dry. Their inner springs scratch for release, relief. It’s a small enough token – picking up new parts for old habits, adding in simple, temporary fixes that yield preservation and permanence. [Note: This poem is taken from " Hard Inheritance" (Five Oaks Press, 2016).] Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Tina Quartey
A Broken Heart I never knew a broken heart could break And scatter in a squllion broken atoms That every little atom thus could ache In brokenness beyond what mind can fathom I never knew abandoned could be left To loneliness beyond all lonely longing That giving of oneself could turn to theft That violated sense of deep belonging I never knew that pain’s a gift of gold Vulnerability the path to fullness That breaking even more can make you whole And crack those broken atoms into oneness So to that golden pain I fully give Myself (the only way to fully live) Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |
Des Clark-Walker
The Rainbow Serpent’s secret From the Arafura sea, birthplace of cyclones, the northwest monsoon brings cumulonimbus rising over the Arnhemland escarpment where colliding clouds incite chaotic lightning as thunder threatens to shatter the cliffs awash with torrential rain. After the storm, respite comes from clearing showers as the Rainbow Serpent arcs its merging colours against a dark sky. Among indigenous people the Serpent has countless names intermingled with myths and legends, traditional mantles for their being. Its perfect arc and colours cannot be denied but tetrachromats with four visual pigments can see ultraviolet beneath the violet, an invisible hue for us, impossible to imagine. [Note: "tetrachromats" are organisms that have "four independent channels for conveying color information, or possessing four different types of cone cells in the eye"--Wikipedia] [Note: Poem has also appeared in Balliol College's Annual Record, 2014] Biographical information, favorite public domain poem. |